Losing Weight. Also Losing Muscle Mass?

I like to keep things simple. Your scale has too much information. Do you know how accurate the values are? Are they repeatable? Do you understand variation? Take your weight plus all that other stuff throughout the day that it adds up to about 25 times. How much variation is there in all the data given? About the only variable you can affect in this short period of time is weight (BMI) and % body water. All other variables should be very close. If not, the extra stuff is just fluff of marginal value.

Why not try holding your weight for the next 3 months and try to get stronger. IMO, the absolute last thing you want to do is lose muscle. Follow your big compound lifts’ progress. If you are getting stronger you are adding muscle.

If you feel you must attempt to lose fat, are you eating at least one cheat meal per week to keep your metabolism as high as possible?

1 Like

It is doubtful you are exercising away nearly 1200 calories per day. I recommend following any advice @RT_Nomad nomad gives you.

I think it would be very helpful for you to stay at maintenance for a little while, and track your macros… I believe you will find that you have slowed down your metabolism due to this long of a cut (Adaptive Thermogenesis), and that your RME is probably lower than what you think it is. You should find your maintenance calories and strength train, as RT Nomad said. Your metabolism will probably pick up a bit, and then go back on your cut.

The effects I believe you are experiencing were outlined and corrected in the MATADOR diet, if you’re interested in reading something (plenty of articles in the T-Nation archives).

Don’t count exercise in your deficit. It doesn’t work

2 Likes

Gotcha–I’ll quiet the scale and try to hold my weight for the next 3 months while focusing on strengthening my compound lifts. I’m eating at least 1 cheat meal per week.

Thanks man, I’ll live in maintenance for a bit and focus on upping my compound lifts. I’ll check out the MATADOR diet articles.

1 Like

The words “at least” are standing out pretty loud there.

4 Likes

Nice, I’ll just shoot for my calorie limit for that day and ignore exercise deductions on MyFitnessPal.

1 Like

It should make you feel a little safer too. 2500 kcal is still a lot, so you’ve got room

If you’re not losing weight, you’re not in a deficit. You said you’ve been “stuck” at 200 for a month. That just means, you’ve been at maintenance for a month. No need to do more maintenance if the goal is cutting more weight.

Losing weight = deficit.
Gaining weight = surplus.
Weight staying the same = maintenance.

Macro splits, quality of food, timing of calories, etc. are all great, but calories in, calories out is the first thing to grasp.

1 Like

It looks like you’re using a renpho scale. Turn off athlete mode and you’ll get a more accurate bodyfat percent. Unless you’ve been properly training for more than two years.

Roger that. I think one of my issues is counting calories burned against my daily intake. So instead of hitting 1878 per day, was probably hitting 2300+.

1 Like

Yup. Don’t bother with calories burned - it’s a theoretical number that varies from person to person. The calories you’re taking in are what you should track, and the movement of the scale (on an average weekly basis) should tell you whether you’re in a deficit, a surplus, or in maintenance.

1 Like

To lose fat you need to eat less calories than you burn, keeping your protein at a minimum of 1g per lb, fats .5g per lb. To retain muscle while doing this you need to train with weights like you did while you were gaining all the muscle in the first place. Lift heavy, as frequently as you can recover from Fairplay. If your not losing weight it’s not witchcraft, your just eating too much. If it looks like your losing “mass” it’s because fat takes up a lot space than we think it should, and we all carry more fat than we think.

Good luck.

1 Like

Drop the cheat meals and try this…

Run through T Nation recomp programs like ‘Athlete Lean-Athlete Strong’ worth a try also

Have you ever tried sitting in an ice bath for 10 minutes a time for a few days a week…this may or may not help with fat loss

Also drinking a gallon of ice water per day can assist

Called Thermogenesis